IzzyB

Still have to talk to the travel agent lol I am a techie so for me anything outside of being able to do it via a website is annoying to me. Back and forth with a travel agent is annoying. We just did two rooms this time as that looked to be the cheapest, but with Kids Sail Free I imagine one room would be the cheapest. Would be nice to price compare cruises and rooms more easily on RC. I used Costco this last time because I saved a TON of money.

Which again is a dumb thing about RC. There are a lot of family of 5 out there and it would be nice if stuff could be done online. I really don't like speaking with people over the phone lol

Did they require floats for the younger child? If so that is also something to consider. My son isn't a fan of life jackets (they ride up to his chin) and he is too big for puddle jumpers now. So that would be good information for parents to know. It is one thing on a boat not in water, but in water he is not a fan, luckily he is a very strong swimmer so he very rarely needs them in water.

How do unvaccinated have it easier? They have always had to do more testing than vaccinated. Also, why do you need to test again at port? My understanding is only unvaccinated test at port to get on ship.

Supply and Demand. If there happens to be a tour that is less popular that one excursion may go down, but the norm is prices go up as they get more booked.

Depends on the child. My 4 year old did a Dolphin thing at Sea World. I wouldn't hesitate to take him to a Dolphin encounter in the Bahamas if they allowed him. Just check the age restrictions on the tour you are booking. But some 5 year olds might be scared or no listen. So I really think it depends on whether your grandson listens and follows rules. My 4 year old has a cousin only 3 months younger and they are vastly different and there are things my son does that his cousin just is not capable of doing because he doesn't follow directions. Like my son was able to forge a knife where his cousin played in the little kid area while all the other kids did knives.

That is why I asked it here as I couldn't price it out online and knew I had to call a travel agent or RC to book cabins that have more than 5. Which is very annoying, Carnival lets you select I believe up to 5. Just would be easier if I could book a party of 5 all in one room online.

If we are two adults and 3 kids and pick a room that is 5+ would all 3 kids sail free?

Keep in mind they can also order off the adult menu. I can't imagine your child not being able to find stuff to eat on a cruise.

There was 5+ rooms but when booking it seemed that was the more expensive route to go, so we went with two rooms next to each other. They are not connecting, but honestly we stay at 1 or 2 bedroom places a lot and our kids are many times closer to the front door than us and it has never been an issue, they know not to leave the room. So I don't see it as an issue for us. I am debating whether to put the 5 year old with us or the other two. Honestly he is a really responsible 5 year old so I don't see him trying to escape the room.

The case is just wasting Florida taxpayers money is all it is doing. I don't know why we spend the money to appeal something that in the end doesn't matter.

I think my main complaint and why we didn't do it this time is that you can't reserve times earlier than 6:45. I want flexibility to do early on some nights and later on others and by having then all on or after 6:45 just doesn't work. So I ended up just doing traditional at 5:30. MTD would work much better if they went back t one dedicated dining room for MTD. The more would do that who have specialty reservations which would help the lines too.

What about shore excursions you book thru RC, because those are guaranteed to not leave you behind. So then it i just emergency situations where staff could get out of safe, right?

I will say many of those people just stopped traveling after having kids. They didn't understand how we could do it and not be stressed and have any fun. Lots of people don't understand how you can have fun on vacation with young kids. We travel a ton with our kids, they are quite spoiled.

I am trying to decide whether going back to the ship and doing activities with no crowds or going to the beach on island is better. We will have beach day at cococay and live in Florida, so maybe that is why ship activities seem better, but my husband thinks hanging around and doing beach is better.

The last cruise I was on for RC I hates the ship, so i didn't vote. But when looking at RC website Oasis and Freedom are the two classes that catch my eye the most so the poll was interesting to me too. Quantum to me was not interesting at all. Getting rid of the ice rink and making it a large gym just seemed like an odd choice. I wasn't impressed with it from the website and wouldn't book a cruise on it Oasis just seemed to have better variety with the Boardwalk and Central Park too.

I think this is so true with life in general. I have had friends question why we travel with our kids so much and that there is no way they could handling vacationing with their kids it wouldn't be fun and a waste of money. Well that is you and I personally have a blast with my children on vacation. Everyone is different and so everyone likes different things. Restaurants I love, others hate and ones I hate others love. The nice things is we all have so many choices on cruises we can find what we like.

Again, you are looking at it from just your perspective and forgetting the cruiseline also doesn't want to upset their customers. Removing ports from already booked cruises is a pretty good way to upset their customers. So nothing today can happen, it is going to take time of cruiselines working with the islands. That will take time and not happen today as you put it.

But how many customers rally? How many are willing to drop cococay (including RC as it is a big money maker for them) for this? I imagine the majority wouldn't be willing to drop cococay to take a stand against the bahamas. I know I wouldn't. I have zero desire to lose a stop on my cruise.

All cruiselines have been allowing 10% the only difference is kids counted in that and virgin doesn't allow kids. RC is now going to allow 20% I think to offset this.

The chacchoben tours are shorter, so it seems that this is just an added lagoon. It said 90 minutes at ruins and the entire thing is 5.5 hours where ruins by themselves is 4 hours. With travel time to and from port I imagine the ruins would be 2 hours on most tours. So 30 minutes less at ruins?

I know that the Exclusive drive one is a smaller tour, so less people, but has anyone done the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins & Bacalar Lagoon Beach tour? Is it smaller or bigger? Is the ruins tour more guided? How was the lagoon part?

I am really hoping that RC doesn't start dropping Cococay on the Mexico/honduras cruises and insteads opt back into the 90% because I would be pretty upset if I lost a stop on my November cruise.

I am good. Kids got in the way of forums and then I lost track of where the forum was as I believe they changed names? Hope you are well.

I agree, I think the cruiselines main concern right now overloading their medical crew or having someone seriously ill and having to change the whole ships plans. Which is why I think they will stick to a certain % and lower it over time as they see medical staff not overloaded.